


The doorway to a thousand churches

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Healing Cock, reunionating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 08:20:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is going to remember who Bucky is, even when Bucky can't remember himself. Especially when he can't remember himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The doorway to a thousand churches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelgazing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelgazing/gifts).



> For Nichole, who wanted the story where Steve saves Bucky with LOVE, if by love you mean a magical healing cock, and we do. Title from Peter Gabriel, of course.

i.

Steve waits outside Bucky's cell, long enough that the guards and the doctors are used to him being there, holding up the wall like he's supposed to be there, like he hasn't been ordered to stay clear because the Winter Soldier wants to kill him. (Steve refuses to call him that; it's Bucky in the cell, and no matter what he's been made into or made to do, Steve is going to remember who he is, even when he can't remember himself. Especially when he can't remember himself.) 

He waits until the shift change, nods at the guards going off-duty, and slips into the cell while they're talking to the new shift. He knows he won't have much time, so he slides into the chair across from where Bucky's chained up and says, "Hey, Bucky."

Bucky looks at him without any recognition in his eyes, which are bloodshot and rimmed in black. "Who the hell is Bucky?"

"You are," Steve answers. 

Bucky scoffs derisively. "They were stupid to send you in here with this nonsense."

Steve starts to say, "It's not nonsense," but Bucky's already leaping over the table and going for his throat, even with his metal arm disabled and chained to the table. Steve blocks him, though it's not as easy as he'd expected it to be--Bucky is stronger and faster than he used to be (even after Zola's experiments; Steve knew what Zola had done, even if neither of them ever talked about it)--but once Steve is inside his guard, he's able to force Bucky's hand down and away. With his other hand, he grabs the front of Bucky's shirt and, with only a fleeting thought for the cameras recording every move, pulls him into a kiss. He knows this is not a fairy tale, and that Bucky isn't suddenly going to remember who he is (or who Steve is, or what they once meant to each other), but there's a small part of him that still _hopes_.

Bucky's mouth is hard and set against his and Steve lets him go after a few seconds. "I'm sorry," he says, aware of the ridiculousness of apologizing to someone who's just tried to kill him. "I shouldn't have done that."

Bucky glares at him and then the doors burst open and Fury is there demanding to know what the hell Steve was thinking.

As Steve leaves, he glances back over his shoulder at Bucky, who's watching him speculatively now.

Steve endures the following lecture from Fury with barely leashed impatience, because now he knows beyond a doubt that it's Bucky in there, and he's going to save him. He just has to figure out how.

*

ii.

"I expected them to send Natasha again," Bucky says the next time Steve sits down across from him. 

"I'm not here to interrogate you," Steve answers. "I'm here to tell you a story."

Bucky snorts. "It beats waterboarding, I guess."

"I was ten when we met," Steve says, refusing to be drawn into an argument. He's already had several discussions with Fury over appropriate treatment of prisoners, even when they're not long-lost American war heroes. "My ma had just died, so I was new to the orphanage. You'd already been there a while, and for whatever reason," Steve had always thought it was Bucky's innate sense of fairness and desire to protect the weak; Bucky'd just said he'd been looking for a reason to take those boys down a peg and he was glad Steve had given him one, "you decided to look after the new kid when I got beat up." Bucky raises a skeptical eyebrow but gestures for Steve to keep going when he pauses, so Steve keeps talking. 

He talks about the Sisters of Charity, and working as a newsboy, about the Cyclone and the Dugan Brothers Bakery and the Dodgers. When he gets hoarse, Bucky pours him a cup of water, like he's the one in charge, like Steve's the one making a confession. Maybe he is. They call it reconciliation now, and that's Steve's goal, even if Bucky is no one's idea of a father confessor.

"You were my first kiss," Steve says, looking down at his hands, the tips of his ears burning as he remembers it. "My first...everything. I was a shrimp, no dame had ever looked twice at me, and you--you looked, and you liked what you saw."

Bucky leans forward, and Steve tenses for an attack, but all he does is say, "This is a great story, pal, but why are you telling it to me?" He sounds more like himself than he has yet.

"Because, because you're my best friend."

Bucky looks away and up, like he's asking for patience from on high, and the mannerism is so familiar that Steve's throat goes tight. "Maybe I was once," Bucky finally says. "I don't know. I don't remember. But I'm not now, and you can't--I was sent here to kill you, and as soon as I get the chance, I plan on completing my mission."

Steve shrugs a shoulder. "You haven't tried yet, and I've been here for almost an hour."

"Your touching tales of schoolboy kisses are a lot more pleasant than my handler's response to failure or SHIELD's attempts at intimidation," Bucky admits. 

"You don't have to go back. Even if, even if you never remember," _me_ , "who you were, you don't have to go back. Look at Natasha."

"Ah, yes, Natasha. The Black Widow has made quite a home for herself here." He looks past Steve, to where the door is opening. "Perfect timing as always, Natashenka."

"James. Steve." She nods at them both. "I'll take over from here."

"For what it's worth," Bucky says, the spark of something genuine, humble even, in his voice, "I think your friend was very lucky."

Steve can feel Bucky's gaze on him as he leaves. He hides his smile. He thinks he's making progress.

*

iii.

They have three more sessions like that, where Steve tells Bucky their story, though it's a lot less like a fairy tale and a lot more like some weird Greek tragedy where they get a second chance that ends tragically as well, despite Steve's determination that it be otherwise. He knows what hubris is, and wonders if he's being punished for it. 

And then one night, Steve wakes to the sound of his phone. He fumbles with it, muttering under his breath as he swipes at the screen. "Rogers."

It's Maria Hill. "Barnes has had a breakthrough. Get down here now." Steve can hear alarms screaming in the background. 

He gets there in record time, barely winded from the run across town, to find Bucky curled up under a counter in the infirmary, rocking back and forth. When Steve gets closer, he can hear Bucky muttering his name, rank, and serial number. He goes to his knees and murmurs, "Bucky? Hey, hey, Bucky, what's going on?"

Bucky stops rocking and looks at him for a long moment before he says, "Steve?" 

Steve smiles at him. "Yeah. Yeah, Buck, it's me."

Bucky leans into Steve, pressing his face to the crook of Steve's neck and inhaling deeply. Steve wraps his arms around him and feels the tension leach out of Bucky's shoulders. Bucky raises his head and presses his mouth to Steve's, soft and warm and desperate, his breath coming in short gasps. Steve tightens his grip on Bucky's shoulders and kisses him back, running one hand up into the long hair at the nape of his neck. He's not ashamed to admit that he's crying, and he can feel the wet heat of Bucky's tears on his skin when Bucky pulls back to bury his face against Steve's throat again.

"You're real," Bucky whispers against his skin. "You're really here."

Steve runs a hand down his back. "Yeah, Bucky. I am."

Bucky sniffs and leans back, looking steadier and more present than he has before. "So, uh, where is here, exactly?"

Steve laughs and presses a kiss to his sweaty hair. "Times Square, if you can believe it."

"The place always was a circus," Bucky mutters, wringing a teary laugh from Steve, and lets himself be helped to his feet.

The explanation Steve gets, when they finally get Bucky settled down and sedated, is that his programming finally broke down and he tried to escape, both SHIELD and whatever was going on in his own head. He'd left a trail of unconscious guards and agents, but only the two closest to his cell had ended up dead. 

"I told you he was in there," Steve says, and Natasha gives him a wistful smile in response.

Later, his sadness as he writes letters to the families of the dead agents is tempered by his joy in having Bucky back.

*

iv.

It's hot the day Steve and Bucky move into the apartment in Brooklyn. It's nowhere near the neighborhood they grew up in, but familiar brownstones line the blocks and kids play baseball in the streets. 

The apartment has air conditioning but Steve keeps the windows open all day instead , the hum of a fan and the shouts of the kids floating up from the street making both him and Bucky feel more at home. 

"I'm still not sure this was the best idea," Bucky says as they eat takeout Chinese in the shiny new kitchen. 

"Better than leaving you in that cell at SHIELD," Steve counters. Bucky opens his mouth to argue but Steve shakes his head. "Don't start that again." If Steve had spent his first few visits to Bucky's cell recounting their history, Bucky had spent the rest confessing his--the Winter Soldier's--sins. "There's no one I feel safer with."

"That's because you're an idiot," Bucky says, but he lets it drop for the moment. The familiarity of it all makes Steve grin foolishly at him around the lip of his glass.

They spend a pleasant evening listening to Count Basie records while Bucky reads and Steve sketches him. It only gets awkward when Steve's ready for bed. 

"You coming?" he asks, putting his sketchpad down on the coffee table. He stands and stretches, enjoying the pleasant, easy pull of his back muscles. 

Bucky looks up, bemused, and then stands as well, tucking his book under his arm. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

Steve goes into the bedroom and expects Bucky to follow him. Bucky hovers in the hallway, looking at the door to the second bedroom, the one Steve had automatically labeled the guest room. "Oh," he says, trying to hide his disappointment and failing. "I thought you'd be in here with me."

Bucky looks startled now, caught off guard in a way Steve hasn't seen in a long time. "I--You sure about that?"

"Yeah. I mean, it's up to you, of course. But I hoped..." Steve trails off. He hasn't asked and Bucky hasn't said how much he remembers about them, and Steve hasn't pushed. It's been seventy years, and he'd had Peggy and Bucky had had half a dozen girls, and maybe still has Natasha, and Bucky keeps saying they're not the same men they were then, but in this, Steve still feels the same. 

"Okay," Bucky says. They don't speak much while they get ready, so many years of living together making it easy to move around without getting in each other's way.

That doesn't carry over once they get into bed, though. Bucky clings to the edge on his side, his back to Steve and his metal arm free to inflict damage if Steve gets too close or wakes him up too quickly.

Steve lies there for a while, listening to the sound of Bucky's breathing, and reminds himself that this is more than enough, more than he could have ever hoped for after he watched Bucky fall from the train. It doesn't still the longing inside him, but he's lived with that most of his life and knows how to ignore it.

He must drop off at some point, because he wakes to the sound of Bucky's ragged breathing, moonlight gleaming blue on the barrel of his gun as he searches the room for a threat that, as far as Steve can tell, exists only in his mind.

"Hey," Steve whispers, sitting up, hands raised to show he's unarmed, "Bucky, you okay?"

Bucky stares at him for a long moment, blank and hard-faced, before he lowers the gun and exhales. "Jesus, Steve. I could have--"

"But you didn't. C'mere." He pats the bed beside him. 

Bucky opens his mouth to protest so Steve gives him the sternest, most stubborn look he's got, all stern eyebrows and heroically clenched jaw. (The others call it his Captain America look, but Bucky called it that first, saw it before he actually was Captain America.) 

Bucky sighs again noisily, and then settles onto the bed, laying the gun on the night table. Even now, his hands are steady. 

Steve wraps an arm around his shoulders, forcing himself not to frown at the clammy sweat on Bucky's skin, and pulls him close enough to press a kiss to the top of his head. Bucky turns into the embrace, his mouth warm and wet against Steve's neck. Steve shivers when the tip of Bucky's tongue traces along his collarbone to the notch at the base of his throat, and eases them back down to the pillows before he tugs Bucky's head up to his for a gentle, searching kiss.

Bucky makes a soft, helpless noise that vibrates right through Steve like a shock. He rolls them over so he can rain kisses down on Bucky's face and chest. He strokes his hands down Bucky's arms, delighting in the soft brush of hair against one palm, and the feel of smooth, warm metal against the other. He pushes Bucky's knees apart so he can lie between them, and thumbs the soft skin of his inner thighs. Bucky arches up into the touch with another soft moan that Steve muffles with a deeper, harder kiss, drinking Bucky in like a thirsty man drinking water after seventy years in the desert.

Bucky touches him tentatively at first, and only with his right hand, skimming over his shoulder, his back, his hip. Steve presses into it, touch-starved and hungry for it after all this time. He takes the metal hand and presses his lips to it, slides them up the smooth surface and then leans in to kiss the pale, gnarled skin where the metal joins Bucky's body. Bucky gasps and thrusts up again, the hard length of his dick pressing against Steve's through their shorts. Steve grinds down into the motion with a gasp of his own, desire sparking through him, centered on the heavy throb of his cock and radiating out through his body. He stops moving long enough to shove his boxers down, fumbles desperately at the waistband of Bucky's for a moment, until there's nothing but hot skin and friction between them.

Bucky's hands curl over Steve's hips, urging him on as Steve rubs their cocks together with every thrust of his hips. Bucky bites frantically at his mouth, his lips red and slick and Steve speeds up, choking off the syllables of Bucky's name like a dare, like a vow. 

"Come on," he mutters against Bucky's lips. "Come for me." And Bucky does, with a shuddering moan, painting their bellies and chests with his come. Steve moans in response and shifts his hips so he's rubbing off against the crease where Bucky's leg meets his body. Bucky's hands slide down to grab Steve's ass, his fingers digging in hard, and pleasure sweeps down Steve's spine in a wave, his vision going white around the edges as he comes. 

He sprawls on top of Bucky when he's done, the way he used to when he was smaller, and Bucky strokes a gentle hand through his hair and lets him stay there for a few moments before shoving him off with a grunt. 

"I forgot how heavy you are," Bucky murmurs as Steve manages to wriggle the rest of the way out of his shorts so he can clean them both up a little. "I can't believe I could forget something like that."

Steve pulls him close, nosing at the spot behind his ear and inhaling the familiar scent of him. "You remember now, and that's what's important."

Bucky leans back to look at him for a long moment, for once the shadowed wariness gone from his gaze. "Yeah," he finally answers, smiling.

end

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The doorway to a thousand churches](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062041) by [Readbyanalise010](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readbyanalise010/pseuds/Readbyanalise010)




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